


Sweat

by Delphi



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M, Pre-Threesome, Summer, Teasing, Vignette, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 11:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13833630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: Dell and Mick ride out the heat on a scorching summer day and engage in a little lechery.





	Sweat

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 16th [A Pictures Is Worth 1000 Words](https://picfor1000.dreamwidth.org/) challenge. Prompt: [Apricot Iced Tea Popsicles](https://unsplash.com/photos/AHovO6qOdFg) by Jennifer Pallian

In Dell's experience, there was only one thing to do about the heat, and that was sweat.

Sure, you could get some freon and slap together a hermetically sealed reciprocating compressor, but when it came to a scorcher, the Texan in him trounced the engineer and called that cheating. Hot weather was a fact of life, and any man who could count on himself knew how to ride it out.

Sunlight struck like a snake bite in the Badlands, and it didn’t quit, with the days stretching to fourteen and a half hours in high summer. You could hear the earth baking if you listened for it, and spit dried before it hit the ground. On Sundays so afflicted, most of the boys stayed inside bellyaching and taking lukewarm showers until they pruned. Dell didn’t, and neither did Mick, who shared his philosophy on heat along with a few other points of mutual interest.

Mick was your man for reading the air, and in conjunction with Dell’s calculations for maximum shade coverage, they were ideally situated just outside the garage. Dell was fixing to have a cookout and maybe a screw in Mick’s van once the sun dipped low enough, but for the moment he was at one with his lawn chair. Mick sat in an identical lawn chair next to him. Both of them were stripped down to their jeans and undershirts, hats tipped forward, getting a sweat on. Between them lay a cooler of beer.

“Think he knows what he looks like?” Mick asked sometime around three, popping the cap off another cold one.

Dell followed his gaze up to where Scout was spying on them from the window of the grain elevator. It was a damned foolish place to be. Hot air rose, and even though the panes were busted out, the kid was on the still side of the building. His face was as red as his shirt, and he was trying to get his mouth around one of those double popsicles Miss Pauling had dropped off.

"Bless," Dell said. "His momma's not here to split 'em."

"He's doing all right.” Mick could have just been parched, but a man in the know might attribute that grit in his voice to a dirty mind.

"He’s got a big mouth," Dell pointed out. He took a swallow of beer and adjusted himself. "Probably a damn sight more tolerable when he’s got something in it."

Mick snorted. "You’re a dog, truckie."

"Arooo." Dell raised his bottle and was met with clink.

The sun beat down. Another prickle of sweat broke out on the back of Dell’s neck. Up in the window, Scout had given up on cramming that thing in his mouth and was licking away as it melted.

"Think he knows what he’s after?" Mick asked.

“Nah.”

The way he saw it, Scout was a yappy pup trying to keep up with the big dogs. He was barking up the wrong tree with Miss Pauling, and he seemed equally clueless about what kind of attaboy he was sniffing around the rest of them for. Dell liked them already housebroken, but he had to admit the kid was kind of cute once you got used to him. Enthusiasm could go a long way.

The sun kept beating down. That fresh sheen of sweat on his neck caught the breeze. Scout licked that melting popsicle down to nothing, briefly disappeared, then came back with another one.

Dell gave the logistics idle consideration. Consecutively was an option. The kid probably had a couple of rounds in him, and they could lay him down in Mick’s bunk and take turns with him until he was firing dry. Concurrently was even more interesting, although they would need to drive out to Dell’s house if they wanted a bed that would fit them. Of course, if mostly upright was good enough, his workshop would do. Lots of sturdy surfaces.

Finally, he said: “Reckon we should?”

Mick seemed to chew on that. “Spy would get his knickers in a twist.”

Dell shrugged, not hearing a no. “That’s the man’s natural state.”

The truth of this got no argument. Mick took off his hat and waved it to signal the kid, then beckoned him down.

If the heat was sapping Scout’s energy, you wouldn’t know it from his speed. Dell had to hand it to him, there weren’t many who would make a straight line between two points by going out the window and down the side of the building to the next roof, and fewer still who could make it with a popsicle in one hand. Scout jumped the last storey, landed on his feet in a spume of dust, then jogged over.

"Yeah?” he said, shading his eyes, which didn’t hide the way his gaze flitted from Mick’s chest to Dell’s shoulders and back again.

Mick held out his hand. “Give it here.”

Scout squinted down at his popsicle, then at Mick, then at Dell with all the suspicion of a youngest brother. Dell didn’t crack, looking straight ahead and taking another swig of beer. He didn’t need to glance over to know that Mick had put on that expression of a patient man who was reaching his limit. The kid gave in.

The blade of Mick’s knife flashed in the sun. He made a nick, then broke the popsicle clean down the middle. Scout lit right up as he took the halves back, one in each hand.

“Hey, thanks!” One pop disappeared into Scout’s mouth clear down to the stick. He took a long suck on it, then switched off to the other and gave it just as nice a slurp.

Dell looked at Mick, who looked back at him. They both looked at the kid.

"Oh man, it’s freaking boiling out here! How do you guys stand it?”

“Why don’t you have a seat and finish those, son,” Dell said, patting the cooler. “We’ll let you in on a little secret.”


End file.
